Just found this petition on Facebook about imminent changes to the NHS...

"If you live in the UK, for you and your family this could well end up being the single most important post you’ll ever read on Facebook. Please read it, please share it, as we now only have just over one month to act.

If the NHS and its amazing staff have ever been there for you or your family, cared for your mum or dad perhaps, or maybe looked after children when they were sick, well this is the moment to be there for the NHS, and it’s quite possibly your last chance.

Why? Well this coming April, without being properly evidenced and openly debated in Parliament, Jeremy Hunt (the Health Secretary) plans to quietly introduce legislation that fundamentally changes our NHS forever.

It allows him to hand the running of your local NHS services over to multinational health conglomerates, and he’s now announced plans to do this in 15 year long contracts, ensuring it’s almost impossible for future Governments to change.

So, if you want the NHS as you’ve always known it, to still be there for your children and grandchildren, guaranteed to be free at the point of care, and focused on patient outcomes and not corporate profits, then right now, today, this is the time to stand up and be one of the 100,000 people that signed the petition that when it gets to 100,000 signatures forces Jeremy Hunt’s privatisation plans to be debated openly in parliament (already it’s approaching 35,000 signatures).

Many of you might have been wondering why Prof Stephen Hawking has been so angry with Jeremy Hunt and this Government of late, and why he joined a legal action against them? Well it’s because of these plans to introduce Accountable Care Organisations (ACOs) and because it’s being done without proper debate and evidence. Indeed, this Government are trying desperately to avoid debating openly in Parliament the legislation which restructures the NHS into ACOs.

So why the fuss about ACOs? Well ACOs according to the Kings Fund; “result when NHS providers agree to merge to create a single organisation or when commissioners use competitive procurement to INVITE BIDS FROM ORGANISATIONS CAPABLE OF TAKING ON A CONTRACT TO DELIVER SERVICES TO A DEFINED POPULATION.”

Some of the senior MPs in Jeremy Hunt’s own party are right now urging him to slow down on his move to ACO’s, to let this change be properly evidenced and debated in Parliament, but he presses on regardless. So we have to ask ourselves, why doesn’t he want to openly debate his plans, if it’s not indeed to hand out these 15 year contracts to multinational health conglomerates?

As bad as that all is, it actually might be much worse. Once your local NHS is being run by large private organisations whose primary goal is squeezing every bit of profit out of their NHS contracts, not patient outcomes, and the costs of care is forced higher and higher, what is expected by many to then follow is the introduction of a health insurance-based system to cover the increasing costs.

The Government obviously deny that a move to a health insurance-based system is their ultimate aim, and that may or may not be true, but we do know is it would be absolutely in line with Conservative party ideology, to shift the cost of the NHS to the individual, thus reducing the cost to the State, therefore allowing for tax cuts which again we know mainly benefit the very wealthy… So again we have to ask ourselves, why would they stop this process?

So, if a healthcare insurance-based system is to be introduced, it would surely be done with a fixed low cap to get us used to the idea of paying for cover, but we all remember student tuition fees and how the low cap was quickly lifted, and now UK students pay some of the highest fees in the entire world. Once our health insurance premiums were also at comparable levels to the States, that would be the game changer for our country.

The average unsubsidised family healthcare premium in America in 2017 was £735 PER MONTH with a £950 excess, and that is what many people now believe we are at risk of paying here too, if this or a future Government does take the decision to complete the privatisation of the NHS.

For many families, even if employers subsidise healthcare cover, such would be the cost each month at best it would remove what was left in the family budget for holidays, the family days out, spoiling your children and grandchildren a little at Christmas, so family life would be very different to today. At worst, families (including many working families) will be left with impossible choices to make. Some would quite literally be going hungry and cold, as healthcare cover for their children will have to be the priority over food and heating.

For future generations, healthcare cover would be yet another huge burden on top of eye-watering tuition fees and impossibly high housing costs, indeed social mobility would become incredibly unlikely as young people, even many graduates, will be kept in a poverty trap with little or no disposable income.

Under the narrative being crafted of the failing NHS, this Government would have you believe privatisation is the answer as they say they are funding the NHS adequately, and it is failing due to the poor performance of its inefficient staff. THIS IS NOT TRUE. It’s failing as it has been underfunded in relation to the increase in the number of patients it’s expected to care for, and because it has been straddled with huge PFI debts, and hospitals are now forced to pay private companies astronomical amounts of money for routine maintenance work. Further privatisation of the NHS will not be its saviour, it will be its ultimate demise.

So what is the answer? Well it’s time now for the NHS to be brought back together into a single organisation run by the public sector, restructured for modern times and then allowed to go forward again as a patient focussed organisation. It needs to be managed by the people who deliver the care, by the staff which serve its cause and in whom we as a country are so incredibly proud. This Government has done the biggest disservice to our doctors and nurses, so please help us assure them it wasn’t on our behalf and that we believe in our NHS and it’s amazing staff.

Above is a link to the petition calling for the Government to stop the privatisation of NHS services, which we need to get to 100,000 signatures as fast as possible so these plans are debated openly in parliament before the legislation is passed in April.

If you do sign this petition today, and if we do lose the NHS as could still happen, well at least then you’ll be one of the 100,000 people that can look your children and grandchildren in the eye and say you did stand up, and you tried to get the politicians to debate their plans honestly.

It takes less than a minute to sign it and you have nothing to lose, but quite possibly your NHS to save so please just do it. We need every single signature and we need them as quickly as possible, so please click the link below right now and remember to share this post too. Thank you.

I'm in the states & constantly hear people here I know say after going to the doctor's & receiving a prescription they cannot afford to fill it. This is for things like pain medication. Their trips to the doctor are turned into a waste of time. This is where you may be headed if you don't sign on to debate what Hunt has up his sleeves.

I am a 73 y.o. senior living in the US and I can tell you that profit-based insurance companies leave many people out in the cold re affordable health care. If I lived in the UK I would sign this at once. If you're unsure, I would suggest researching US healthcare pros and cons online. The people that have the hardest time seem to be middle and lower income families with dependent children. Sorry to interfere but felt I needed to add my opinion. irina1975

I agree: used to live in US and while I had excellent (v expensive) health insurance, I saw many, many people, most of my colleagues and friends, who simply had to choose between health insurance or mortgage (or rent). NO way to afford both and also to eat, should you have developed that expensive habit too. It started off not that expensive back in the 60s, and rapidly rose up into the $1000s per month for good insurance. The other part that no one mentions is that it is a huge, huge hassle and paperwork burden for the patient to have insurance companies: they set deductibles, co-pays, exclusions, and so on, with paperwork at every stage that if you don't get right, your claim is denied. (This is especially hard on the elderly and the very ill.) And it ends up that you still pay a pile of money in addition to the exorbitant insurance fees, and then to add insult to injury (literally!), you are sometimes told, sorry, you can't have this or that treatment even though your doctor ordered it, unless you pay 100%; or worse, you get the bill *afterward* saying, you had this CT scan or MRI or whatever, and now you owe is 2000 or 3000 or whatever they choose to say, and if you don't pay we pursue you in court and can force you into bankruptcy. A very high percentage of US bankruptcies are from medical bills. And nowhere is it possible to find price lists of what procedures or treatments will cost. HORRIBLE. Yes, it is true that if you have a whole lot of money, US health care may be better than here, because you can get any treatment you want at any time---fast, and very very good if you go to one of the many excellent facilities widely available. But you pay, pay, pay until you are impoverished, and it is truly unimaginable to people outside the US how high these costs can go. SIGN PETITION and keep your wonderful NHS.

We have this system in Germany and it works well, as the social system picks up the cost for those unable to pay.

With rising life expectancy and advancing medical ability, there are more treatments and tests available, which come at a cost thus making the current model untennanble to be publicly financed in its current set up.

I am not agreeing on how Jeremy Hunt goes about it and agree there needs to be provisions for those less well off to ensure everyone can have the same level of healthcare, regardless of income.

Personally I don’t think the American model would work for those on low incomes and I think everyone should receive the same healthcare funded by those that can afford it and subsidised by the Government.

I agree there would need to be a lot more research and case studies before committing to anything.

Any changes would also have to address the current care crises for the sick, disabled and elderly and those having to put their lives on hold caring for them.

Have just read a post on here from someone living in the Channel Islands. They pay 50 GBP's to see a GP and 25 GBP's for blood tests. Beyond that all is covered. I have long felt a similar system would run well in the UK - at a lesser cost perhaps. Pharmacies could have super trained nurses to deal with minor conditions.

I pay 25 euro to see a GP here in Crete - pay for some blood tests - not all. I do not have Private Healthcare Insurance but am currently covered by Reciprocal Healthcare. If the NHS privatises huge areas then I am presuming that will cease.

For those not able to pay - then an exemption card should be issued.

Reducing taxes to help the rich and then sting the less fortunate, seems an ongoing global theme in our money grabbing generation ....

I understand JH is a wealthy man even without his ministerial salary - so what does he care .....

Sadly Private Insurance Companies do not guarantee good health nor are they interested in Preventative Health - just money.

All this should be debated. Maybe there are better systems out there - but we must ensure it is a fair one.

In the Channel Islands health care is expensive. You have to pay for consultations, prescriptions, minor surgery, injections, ear syringing, etc. A home visit will cost over £100. The ambulance is not free it can be as much as £500 a call out unless you take out their subscription which is the cheapest option. Opticians, dentists, chiropractors, physiotherapists and A & E are not free . Most people take out medical insurance for their children at birth otherwise it is horrendous. When I left four years ago I was paying £2000 a year in insurance for my family which to some people may not seem a lot but the cost of living in the islands is very expensive. One of the only good ideas which could be taken from their healthcare system is that they charge people £25 for a missed appointment. At our surgery last month 85 appointments were wasted by people not bothering to ring and cancel. Its this abuse of the system which is also putting pressure on the nhs.

You are very right there! I think failing to cancel appointments is appalling bad manners, and penalises other patients who can't get an appointment. Charging for missed appointments - unless there is a very, very good excuse - might make people less cavalier.

Hi Catlover.In the US most doctors have an out-of-pocket charge for uncancelled appts. (No shows). This is mentioned when the appt is made as a reminder. Usually it requires a 24 hr notice to avoid the fee. Some specialists require 48. They are very decent about it. If there are extenuating circumstances they may waive it. I think this is only fair for people that just don't show for no good reason to be charged. It is rude, inconsiderate, and leaves the rest of us open to picking up the cost of wasted time.

This has been the system for NHS dentists for as long as I can remember. The only reasons my dental practice would waive a cancellation fee are in cases of acute illness or family emergency, such as bereavement.

I agree. In my experience once a politician starts down this road of trying to slip new laws thru (using sneaky ways,) it is only the beginning of other changes they attempt to change this same way. Somebody will be making big money here and you can bet it won't be the rank and file. I don't presume to know the best and fairest way that the UK should handle changes but my experience here (US) is that when done sneaky there is big money involved for a few and detrimental changes for the many. Everything should be discussed-open and above board. I like GG's term-government by stealth! Good luck getting the signatures needed. One of the negatives of our system is that when a procedure/treatment/med is recommended, though usually done for the patients' good this is not always the case. We (patients) then have the added burden of deciding 'is this medical recommendation in my best interest or to increase someone's bottom line?' This concern enters into all my healthcare decisions. Every healthcare establishment here has a financial dept that (I feel) drives the practice. Even tho the docs may want to be ethical and give patient-centered care they are not the top of the line boss anymore. The financial moguls are the ones that keep up with how much money is coming into the practice/institution/dept and puts pressure on the docs to keep the money coming in- by ordering more lab tests/ procedures to recoup money spent on expensive equipment etc. There are quarterly meetings re revenue and,if a dept's generated revenue has slipped all of sudden more tests or whatever are being ordered to increase revenue for the next quarter. And big pharma is right there offering big perks to doctors to order their drugs. This has gone on ever since I started practicing as a nurse. It supposedly has been outlawed some years ago but, believe me, it is still happening. When I became a head nurse in the late 60's in the O.R. part of my job was ordering various supplies/equipment/etc. I would be sent some very nice 'gifts' by various companies ( a case of wine comes to mind) to choose their brand over another. This was 'small potatos' compared to perks for people who had real purchasing power. As I said, it still happens-just in more 'under-the-radar "ways. I'll stop now. You get the picture. Private healthcare whose rules are decided by the few can be a very slippery slope. Thanks for listening. irina1975

We need to look at alternative models. The nhs is a broken model and pouring more money in will not fix it.

We are at our limit on how much we can pay into health care today. Local gov has been cut to the bone, the forces have been stripped back, policing is under huge pressure, teaching is starting to struggle but has been protected.

We pay £50 bn in interest per year and still over spend by £50bn.

Running the country’s budget should be no different to how we run our own households. It is crazy to talk about a second car purchase or a holiday to Disneyland when we have a credit card debt of a million and still over spend on credit cards by £50k per year.

It's very wrong to say that a country's budget should be run like a household budget, because the two things have very different characteristics.

For the example you give, if you buy a new car out of your household budget that money is gone forever and won't come back.

However, for the economy as a whole if one person buys a car then other people get that money - the salesperson now has that money in their hand, and they use it to pay all their expenses, and a load of the money goes to the company that made it, which pays all their wages, and everyone goes out to buy food, rent, entertainment in their locality, and it goes into other people's pockets.

Your car purchase puts food on many people's tables, who may be running short if you didn't buy your car that day. And of course if this is public spending and we were talking about a whole fleet of vehicles for the NHS or police force, etc, then many people have jobs and income that otherwise wouldn't exist.

On the contrary, if that money is kept stored in the bank, then the economy is poorer, because it's taking out money that would otherwise circulate round and get into lots of people's hands.

So the economy as a whole is absolutely nothing like spending in your household. If someone has told you it is its because they're trying to trick you, so be suspicious!

A thousand likes, SilverAvocado . This is the austerity message that has been successfully pushed for nearly a decade. Macro economics does not work in the same way as the household budget, not least because governments have the power to create money.

It's on my list. I read a review when it first came out and immediately made a note. Just 40 or so other books in my pile to read first! Good job at least half are second hand, otherwise the household economy would be suffering as a consequence.

I am really interested in how economies work and over the years it has slowly come to me that the whole system is rigged, but the populations just do not realise it. If we could have proper economic education at schools this would be a start.

I am not interested in left/right wing politics because this is all a red herring. The system is abused by all parties and it happens in many countries the world over. Only a small number of countries are actually running what i would see as a controlled and longer term sustainable system. Germany does it through basic hard graft and good organisation. Norway does it because it has an abundance of oil, but rather than spend it to pay for stuff today (as we have done over the last 30 years) they invested.

The Norwegian fund (owned by its 5m citizens) is worth $1.1 trillion and last year earnt $63Bn in income. This is a passive income, no one needs to go out and sweat to earn. It comes through to the population yearly and allows for a better quality of life for the whole population.

Your argument that the economy can be seen as a positive cycle circle does not actually stack up because the circle has a leak. This leak will soon be worth £2 trillion of national debt. This disgraceful level of debt can only sink our ship in the end. There is no way we can pay this off.

The only answer the politicians have to fix this pyramid scheme is to input more human beings to pay for the debt being run up by the people of today. This was fine when we died much earlier and had a smaller population, but this is no longer a sustainable solution long term.

The economists of the world do talk about your idea of a global input / output system and yes this is how economies run.

BUT in this system there are winners and losers and for the losers the quality of life has dropped away hugely in the last 30 years since globalisation started to ratchet up.

In the UK we are on the loosing side. Everyone can see and feel this on a daily basis. I would say we have a 50/50 balance between those who are doing well under this system and those who are struggling. A system really needs to only have 20 or 30 % not doing well for it to keep running smoothly.

So my basic summary comparing how we manage the economy is, yes, very basic, but i am sure if we had stuck to some of these principles many decades ago we wouldn't be in such a loosing situation. The thing is no one wants to make tough decisions and so the NHS or pensions or the welfare system has never be restructured to take into account affordability, increasing age and increasing populations.

We are at the point where maths impose on us these really horrible structural changes.

I am aware chatting about this stuff can make many people uneasy, but i do feel we need to be able to talk about this subject a lot more because that way people can understand what has taken place and can learn from others. I am always open to different takes on these problems. These are my own thoughts on the subject and i am aware it is a huge complex issue, but not talking about this stuff is probably a main reason why we are in this terrible position.

Marsaday, did you read the link I posted above? The fact that it comes from a left-wing blog is neither here nor there. It is a discussion of the basic facts of monetary theory and policy, and it answers a lot of your questions and, dare I say it, some of your misconceptions about government 'debt'. Another very good source of information on this subject is this admittedly expensive undergraduate economics text, which I'm going to request that my county library buys for its stock:

It doesn't alter my thinking at all. Most people know the truth is not about creating free money. It doesn't exist. That is not how any good system should work.

If you really create free money it just makes an economy worthless in the end. There is total mismanagement of the economy in Venezuala and Zimbabwe which highlight that.

You cannot get away from the fact we owe £2 trillion to "the system". This is usually other countries or very large pension funds. We have to keep servicing this debt annually and at the moment it is around £50Bn in interest. People will still lend to us because our economy is deemed trustworthy, so the interest rate is not set to high.

But if we decide to go on a free money printing spree, these other countries / pension funds / corporations will downgrade us and will pull us back into line by upping the repayment rates. This controls how much we can spend.

The system is huge and it is totally interlinked. We just cannot ramp up spending unless we have an underlying economy which can pay for these items. Norway has a tiny population and huge oil resources, Australia has a tiny population and huge mineral resources. Germany is a super exporter and has an economy based around varied sectors (finance, agriculture, engineering, manufacturing). They are a surplus country, but they will also have debt. Debt is good to some level, but it gets dangerous if the future economy is not able to repay it.

Our main industries are finance, weapons and pharmaceuticals. We are not a balanced economy. We have big winners, but also many losers in our system. Similar to the crap USA model.

Yes we can borrow, but we have a huge burden on our backs from previous past borrowing.

Borrowing money is simply taking money from the youngs future. They are the ones who should be shouting no more borrowing. The 1995-2006 was a golden economic time, but we still over spent massively.

The answer is not more spending.

I don't like how our society works. We seem to be stuck between the american model and the Scandinavian model. We should try something radical and either go down the low tax / private model or go for the high tax / great public services route. Being in the middle doesn't seem to work.

I'm sorry, but I think you've fundamentally misunderstood the modern monetary theory and practice referred to, so much so that it's obvious you haven't read the explanation in the first link. The same subject is also discussed in much more detail in economics undergraduate textbooks like the one in the Amazon link.

My final reply to you: please read and digest the information I provided in my first link (the blog) in response to SilverAvocado. The point of providing external links to information is so that I don't have to re-hash it all here. The second link contains the same, more detailed, information in the form of a book used in our universities to teach Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). There are other books on the subject. The information I linked to is mainstream stuff, though few members of the general public know it.

I’m no economist, but I cannot understand how it can possibly make financial sense to pay private companies rather than publicly owned services.

The publicly owned organisations prime aim is to provide a service. The prime aim of private ones is to make a profit for their shareholders. They’re quite open about that.

If their contracts undercut the cost of services provided by the NHS, they must either be paying their employees far less or have fewer employees. Aren’t we already complaining about there not being enough nurses, doctors, dentists etc.?

If there is any profit to be made, i.e. the difference between the cost of providing the service and our taxes and n.i. contributions, I would rather it was ploughed back into the NHS than fat cat’s off shore bank accounts.

As it is, already the biggest cost to the NHS is PSIs and drug companies, who are making great profits at our expense.

I may be wrong, but I think that this Government made GP practices responsible for their own budgets. Is this why there’s such resistance to refer us to a specialist, or prescribe the more expensive medication? Does it come out of their budget and reduce their profits?

And the reason for 10 years of cut backs to all the services is because our taxes have been used to bail out the biggest private companies of all, the banks.

It was interesting to read that most of the shares in our railways are now owned by foreign governments and profits are contributing to their citizen’s pensions.

I don’t know if anyone else saw this in the Metro this week, but I sincerely hope this never happens here, but it’s only a few more steps down the slippery slope.

Oh and I’ve just thought of another way that private companies get our money. They get the contracts by offering to cut the cost to an amount so low that it can’t be done. Then they keep finding ways to get more money by claiming that this, that and the other hadn’t been allowed for in the estimate and by making the little contractors wait longer for their money. Look at the escalating cost to the Government (therefore us) of any new building, motorway etc. Eventually, when they’ve squeezed as much as they can and there’s no more left, the ponzi scheme collapses. Look at the private residential home chains that have gone bankrupt, and on a grander scale, Carillion.

I agree we do have to start thinking about new ways to approach health care and I think the problems in the NHS are as much about government control of our health as lack of funding. Thecurrent system takes money out of our pockets and then tell doctors how to treat us and is so disempowering. I dont think I in anyway support what the governement is proposing but changed does need to happen.Our doctors, teachers,socialworkersare so controlled now by targtes that we as patients have effectively no say in our own health care and I have had to pay for private treament for myself and my children just so I can be heard.If we have private companys providing health care they should be working for us not beurocrats in westminster. I think the NHS does somethinsg very wellandshould be funded to do so Like icu but as far as chronic health conditions it does on the whole I think more harm than good.I would like a yearly budget thatIcan spend on my health care and I would like charitys like thyroid uk or MS society charitys that are run by sufferers to be able to refferto specialists rather than GPs and the specialists wouldhave to be doing a grand job to impress us. I have the idea ofour health care being in thehandsof multinational but I am not longer a flag waving fan of NHS.

This is already happening,several West and a North Yorks CCG have contracted out diabetic eye testing.The service was excellent but two people were involved : one to fetch ,administer drops and take you back the other to do the eye test.Before one person did the lot so I did wonder how this saved money.

Probably because the company forced the two people to say they were self-employed saving the company employer's NI, pension contributions, sick pay, paid holidays etc. Of course, it might be that those two people were allowed to work wherever they wanted and were genuinely self-employed, but I suspect a touch of Pimlico Plumbers.

Thank you for posting Greygoose, had no idea that JH was proposing these changes in April so will sign the petition just as soon as I finish this post.

I am appalled but can't say I am surprised, its been coming for years in all avenues of the UK, privatisation of water, utilities, public transport, care homes, parts of the postal system and some I have probably forgotten about, all of whom you may recall were sold off due to inefficient management and here we are again......whose responsible for all these agencies, the Government, so who was inefficient? - successive Governments, and who bears the brunt of increased costs - we do! In the US the leading cause of Bankruptcy are medical bills.

According to the Institute of Health Equity, life expectancy in the UK dropped for females from 0.35 to 0.01 from 2011 to 2015 (if you believe statistics) If people are living longer its not by much - the problem is that medical intervention starts much earlier than it used to for older people either surgery or medication (or both), it would be hard to find anyone over the age of 60/65 these days who takes no medications at all.

There is nothing wrong with the NHS as far as I can see and a move to increase privatisation is just the thin edge of the wedge. If extra money is needed then they should increase NI contributions, it is after all the 'insurance' everyone pays for the service. I agree with some of the posters that a nominal charge could be made for appointments and also missed appointments as well. They should also stop giving GP's bonus payments for prescriptions.

However, I am not keen on any system that stigmatises the less well off in our society. The NHS was set up for everyone, rich or poor, at the point of need.

The Life Expectancy excuse has been a pretty well-believed fallacy for quite a long while now. The fact is the life expectancy of wealthier people has, generally speaking, been increasing steadily for many, many years; whilst that of the less wealthy, & the poor, have been either linear (unchanging) or decreasing in certain sections.

Furthermore, life expectancy for these ‘underclasses’ has dropped very, very dramatically in the last 7/8 yrs & even for the middle classes, has declined too. This situation was examined as an Oxbridge study & found to be ‘Austerity’ related.

Those who feel these are ‘merely statistics’ may wish to do their own research, however the divisive bias of much of the media in the UK helps little toward clear & candid informing of public knowledge, or opinion.

Those who may feel this topic, or my post, are ‘too political’, & may wish to ‘blame’ other elements of society (other than those with the true power to manufacture this situation & malformed opinion), again, may be advised to do some unbiased research before rising to the defence of the indefensible.

Many, many (more) people will die unnecessarily, & prematurely, as a result of these, & other measures, that have, I believe, been in the pipeline for years - a true ‘long-term’ plan ... which is now soon coming to fruition if everyone keeps believing other certain, purposely distracting, headlines from those with a clear vested interest in the public believing them.

Sign & share for your life ..as it, & your family’s & friends’, may very well depend upon its outcome, & intervention in these, nothing but selfish & evil, plans!

I shall be an awkward customer greygoose by not signing it. marsaday makes some very good points especially about looking at alternative models. After all how many other countries have the same system as the UK?

What I would really like to see happen is an unannounced and thorough examination of the financial affairs of all those holding powerful positions within the NHS and directly connected to the NHS.

Let's hold NHS employees accountable for their actions and inactions. Doctors have been getting away with sloppy doctoring for far too long, it's not acceptable for a consultant on a six figure salary to tell a patient that they're not concerned about their symptoms. This has happened to me and there was nothing I could do about it cos it's always the patient's fault.

Sexism and misogyny should not exist in the 21st century but it does and in the NHS. Far too many women have been dismissed by male doctors as being hypochondriacs/attention-seeking etc. They're subjected to further poor treatment when one dares question them or call them out. This has to stop.

Start treating patients properly and stop handing out pharmaceuticals that deal with symptoms and not the cause. That means GPs should not be permitted to hand out anti depressants and, in any case, they have no mental health qualifications.

The public have to realise that a visit to a GP should not routinely result in a pharmaceutical being prescribed. Expectations need changing, as does the length of an appointment.

Health education should start in school and this must cover healthy eating. Bring back proper cookery lessons and they should be held regularly, being treated as an important part of good health.

I agree with whispers, if this goes through, in about a month's time, it'll be too late for looking at alternative models and examinations. The whole point of this petition is to stop it going through, and then other things can be looked at after. Nothing is ever likely to improve if this goes through, so maybe that's what we should be concentrating on for the time being, and split hairs afterwards, don't you think?

cinnamon girl please start a petition upon medical professonials who dont listen - this is valid point however-- but at the same time i am worried about our nhs going usa way.. iam sick of this governement , they earn massive salaries and are able to afford healththcare - us poor sods dont. we must fight them on the beaches- as churchill would say, as gg says, lets get thru thru first then the rest will come later...

To the guy living in Channel Islands..we pay for Opticians, dentists, chiropractors, or those of us not receiving income support supplements and there are too many here doing that currently and have done for 'decades' . Mostly why we have a bulging population as England was once seen as the land of 'milk and honey' for those coming in not paying a cent in here and taking plenty of our systems ripe benefits out plus a once great health care! ..also many refuse to work here and there are generations of leg swingers I have them in my own extended family. The NHS needs to be fixed, the system as a whole needs fixing, there should of been in place decades back a card issued to visitors or those newly arrived here that had to be shown at point of care and then the NHS claimed the money back or even a up front payment which is done in many Countries to date. This then ensures billions being swiped out for unnecessary visits to A & E why was nothing in place? Everything could of been prevented that has happend here, its called bad planning, non progressive thinking and open house which the British citizens are left picking up now , defunct service one that is broken to bits and beyond and worse paying for it!, we all paid in let us not forget that here ..and yet we are being forced to receive a appalling level of health care by comparison to the rest of Europe and West.. I have gotten that tired of this 'failure' that I pay privately if I feel its a matter of urgency (and it usually is) and use the NHS now mostly for standard checks and Consultant appointments because there is no point in hanging around 3 months for a assessment, most of us are gridlocked into this system without 'prior consent or warning'!! We appear to be open housed and charity bound to everyone expect those who have lived here been born here and paid in here, that indeed has to stop and if private care is a way forward in weeding this out then go to it, we cannot continue to ignore and congratulate a situation that worsens yearly, its over and failed, we have to accept it and find a way forward to better care..for our citizens. There is not a Country in the world that would allow this to have happend or taken place for this amount of time, can any of us imagine turning up anywhere not having put in a cent and getting a life saving operation for 'free'? no..we are broken by bad management and misguided thinking. If it takes a private care regime to help out then we go that way, no idea what is going to work personally but we are indeed in need of a 'fix'. Foreigners need to pay on entry to any of our great Hospitals alike the rest of the world.. I knew someone that lost everything having surgery in USA because they were deemed fit enough to travel without insurance ..bankrupt now, that is extreme so maybe we can adopt a happy medium and get back to the best on offer to our people here and for once put them first!!! The elderly can be helped out better by having a capped payment for care (not robbing the family of inheritance) care homes (which are defunct and not workable in the current ) and causing ever more problems on the already broken care in Hospitals ..if a family were assured that their right to inheritance was assured those care homes would be in place as first line as it stands this is not the case and people remain steadfast in keeping them in their own homes as the direct consequence is losing the home to the care home..its not acceptable any of it. This is then adding further strain to Hospitals which are now being seen by the world and classed as 3rd world care by NHS professionals which indeed it is to bed blockers year after year and nothing solution wise is being negotiated . everything is fixable look to other Countries for the better care and more rational treatment of the elderly . The NHS offers 'basic care'!! admitted to me from Doctors here these days..that has and needs to change and the system itself needs to be overhauled from every angle if we are to catch up with our European counterparts , and clearly we do.

Hi I totally agree with you. I also think we should make people have health insurance before they are allowed in the country so that they can't come here for health tourism. When I was in the hospital having my son 18 years ago the lady in the next bed to me was from Nigeria and she was paralysed down one side so she told me that her boyfriend had paid her flight to England so that she could have the baby here. I have sympathy for her situation but we just can't pay for the whole world! Surely there are local charities that could have helped in her home country. Sadly she left the baby here - I saw the poor little mite being taken away by a foster mother.

I am not sure this is the right way forward, but root and branch changes are necessary. I worked for the NHS all my working life and I despair at the way things are now. Someone is spending money wrongly.

NHS not much help with thyroid problems but they had done many other good thing for myself and family I also worked it the health service it work a great deal better when those that did the work were in change have signed and past it on to all friends and family

Why do you think the other political parties are not shouting out about this? If it’s on Facebook and Twitter then the politicians and Senior figures in the NHS must surey be aware of the health secretary‘s plans? I smell a rat.

I was sent these details and the petition this evening and forwarded them to a number of people. Hopefully, they'll also forward it to others.

The above decisions were deliberate, as were the decisions to make this country and the entire world a trickle up (not trickle down) society in which the poor are disempowered and looted, as were all the off-shore tax havens, and as were the endless wars to devastate and loot others and their countries.

HB, I know it's not a trickle down. That's what they keeping alleging, that it's a trickle down economy where eventually, some sweet day b4 we finally pop our clogs, we might receive a trickle. They know that's not happening. And, anyway; we're not interested in a "trickle".

FFS my blood pressure has gone off the richter scale- i am soooooooooooooo sick of all this underhandedness,backhanders, skullduggery! in it for profit withall their bankbalances and salaries and claims----i am furious, i now need a heavy bucket full of tranquiliser to calm me down!

I've a new MP in my constituency. She's already been far more vocal in the past year on issues of social justice and public services than the previous incumbents were over the past 25! I'm really hoping she will be able to speak in the debate on the NHS.

why do some people think it is necessary for private companies to take over or we ''will have no nhs'- i posted this on social media -----kahuti, and nhs worker has said the op who did petition has worded it wrong andits necessary for private companies to take over

I would be sorry if that happened but I do believe that something has to happen. The NHS is too big and no matter what Government is in power can thay sort it out.

Each one has thrown money at with not a lot of change. A few year they paid for me to go into a private hospital and the treatment was amazing. I was seen to by 5 nurses in less than 24 hours and out in 23. Earlier I had been in an NHS hospital for the same op and stayed 5 days.

I do get free drugs (I am over 60) but I would be willing to pay for them if it helped but sadly I don't think it would

Could I suggest that you read the link I posted under SilverAvocado's comment, further up the post. It explains how money works at macroeconomic level - in a completely different way to that which the public has been conditioned to think.

It isn't possible to introduce legislation without it being properly debated and being in the open. There is a process in the UK. IMHO these kind of posts are scaremongering at best and should be ignored.

greygoose thanks for your posting. I copied it across to the PA forum and many have signed there.

As for the posters who do not like the NHS - Doctors who are bad will be just as bad and sting you for it. And I would rather pay for the odd visitor from abroad than the hoards of drunks in A&E on Friday and Saturday nights. Without our immigrants we will be short of workers, including doctors and nurses.

Lets hope its 1 million by the weekend! Its a funny old world we live in where significant changes to the NHS are only brought to the attention of the public by social media. I agree with you GG, if this is not out in the open and up for discussion now we will lose the chance of ever being able to have an input. Private companies will do as they always do, cream off the best bits and leave the rest. The NHS belongs to the people of this country.

I am aware that many surgeries are passed to private companies as we speak, and I know that people are impressed by the attention and speed of their service, but I am not entirely convinced that speed is a good thing, being the sceptic that I am it just makes me think that they need you out as quickly as possible to fill the bed with another paying customer, private or funded by the NHS.

Whatever happens I doubt if thyroid and other autoimmune conditions are ever going to be treated differently than they are at the moment, private doctors will have gone through the same training and have the same attitude, as we all know from our US posters.

Just got an update e-mail from petition.parliament.uk. Parliament will debate the petition on 30 April 2018!

The Government response to the petition was as follows:

We remain committed to a publicly funded NHS. However, the private sector has always played a vital supporting role in the NHS, for example in building hospitals, in providing facilities management services, in supplying medicines and equipment. Primary care contractors – GPs, dentists, pharmacists – have always been independent contractors and are not NHS employees. The opportunity – not obligation – of NHS commissioners to use private sector healthcare providers in order to support existing NHS-delivered care has played a key role in improving patient choice, and in reducing waiting times. In such cases, private sector contractors have to adhere to the same standards of efficiency, safety and quality as NHS providers do, and for this reason the publicly funded NHS will always remain in the driving seat. We are clear that patients should be able to access the best possible treatments based on quality of care and value for money not the type of provider they receive this care from.